SteveH

I love "Make me an offer". It invites me to offer what I truly think something is worth or what I am willing to pay for it.

I see that some folks are worried about "insulting" sellers. I don't get that. THEY said make offer, if they are offended by my offer that is their issue, not mine. If my offer is way lower than the asking price I usually make a "pitch" as to why, but even then I don't care if it hurts their feelings, it should not. it was not a personal anything, just an offer.

Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away I made my living as a telemarketer. I even managed an office of telemarketers for a while. I once showed my staff that I could stay on the phone with a person for 10 minutes AFTER they said no, because they were not willing to hang up on me as long as I kept asking questions. Literally I had a person say "Please hang up, I do not want to talk to you any more", but they would not hang up on me as long as I continued the three steps of telesales (acknowledge the customers objection, turn the objection into a reason to buy, make a closing offer)

(BTW - Disclaimer, I am the person my friends call when they want to go buy a car...)

Mrs. SewNSew

I have responded with an offer twice now to these "make an offer"ads and had the people berate me and my offer, once publicly. That one time it was an old stitcher in a bentwood case on a local garage sale site and I privately offered 20.00. The woman came back onto the public site saying she was offered 20 and that was way too low! She had paid 100.00 a year ago and never used the machine. She posted a eBay ad showing someone ASKING for 250 for a similar machine.

I wrote her again PRIVATELY letting her know I was not trying to insult her and hoped she was not trying to insult me. I informed her I buy machines at that price and lower all the time and that letting a machine sit unused for a year is not really good for the machine.

I felt she was rude for posting my offer publicly like that. *The sewing machine is still not sold several months later. I'm sure once people saw what she was expecting for it, they all lost interest.

Rodney

That one is an automatic deal breaker for me. I don't care what it is or how much it's worth compared to the price. Once a price is set by the seller I walk away if they try to raise it.
Rodney

oldtnquiltinglady

Well, I have laughed out loud at some of these postings and remarks, and am like some of you in that I will NOT "make him/her an offer" as I feel the same way that some of you do. I just walk on by, and am not surprised a month later when I stroll by the same person with the same item with "make me an offer" still there. And I tend to get mad when I have something for sale and someone says "is that the least you will take"--I pretty much know what like items are selling for, and usually have mine priced cheaper than that for that reason.

SteveH

Oh, yeah, this would annoy me! I might reply that "well, saw one sell on CL once for $10 so let's split THAT difference..."

Candace

I'm the same way.

Candace

Like Miriam, I price my machines for resale at a very good price considering the service I've done on them and my local market. I always put "firm on price" on the ad if I do think I'm being extremely fair, and that typically cuts out the dickerers. I've only been insulted one time in all my sales, by someone who emailed me that I had a "ONLY a Brother badged machine worth $40 tops". I kindly responded that if she/he knew of where one could buy more of these fully serviced, excellent condition $40 machines to kindly let me know as I would buy a bunch!! They never told me where the secret stash was. Hmmm.....

miriam

When I go to the flea market I don't stop at booths where they don't have prices. I wonder why they don't have prices on their stuff. I figure they are running a museum if they don't have prices. I wonder if they are going to charge me a different price based on what they think I can pay. AND then some of them with prices are so out there they are just asking for a low ball bid.

manicmike

That is outrageous behaviour. Don't people value their own word these days? The deal was done, no bartering afterwards.

Rodney

That's the problem. Many don't put any value on their word these days. Money before integrity. Sad, really.
Rodney